Sling use?

W

Wolfhound

Newbie
I am relatively new to LARPing and to Alliance as well. Will be attending the September event for the Traverse City Alliance as an NPC to check things out and may occasionally attend Southern Michigan events. I am considering PC options to play in future events in TC and SoMi areas (will most likely attend the TC events more often as I'm hoping to be moving back up to the area and currently live about mid-way between the two areas). But one question I have not been able to find answers to is in regards to a Sling (not a sling shot) as a possible ranged weapon.

Do any rules or variants of rules that are acceptable to specific Chapters exist for such an item? I understand that an actual sling would not be useable and that it would need to be mimicked by the use of something like the following: maybe transfer a "packet" (to represent loading the sling stone into the sling) from your off-hand to your dominant hand. And then swinging your arm around in a circle (from the elbow or shoulder) three to five times or even possibly doing a 3-count if need be (to represent winding up the slings momentum by swinging it several times). Then throwing the packet (to represent the release of the sling stone from the sling). With the packet then doing say 2 or even 3 points of "thrown" weapon damage as its base (to represent the incredible amount of momentum that a sling can generate and impart/transfer into the thrown/"slung" sling stone, since in reality and in the hands of someone who is trained they can generate momentum approaching that of a moderate calibre pistol)?

If so, I would imagine that the packets would need to be blue similar to arrows/bolts due to their "projectile" nature. Of course in this type of representation, to mimic the "wind up" of the sling, if it is not actually thrown or the persons arm does not continue to swing around in a circle from the elbow (similar to the way that an archer must hold their "aiming hand" at their shoulder or ear until it is fired, otherwise they must "re-nock" the bow), the "momentum" should be lost and the player would need to start over by "re-loading" the stone into the sling.

Not sure if such "outside the box" suggestions or options are possible if the Plot people/adjudicators/judges could make a call to allow such a concept? Or if such ideas or other alternate concepts are not allowed?


Any assistance or guidance on this would be greatly appreciated.
 
It's a bad idea to be swinging stuff around in combat whip like, so the action of winding up isn't really going to be done in a safe way. You should avoid trying to do this. No chapter is going to let you make a variant weapon but, the weapon rules are lose enough that plenty of folks use katanas, tridents, etc. They just have a base type of normal weapon. A katana is a long sword, a trident is a spear. They must follow all the rules of using them, even if the real life weapon might be used in a different way.

That being said:

You have two options to using a sling in game.

1) You make a crossbow that looks like a sling. It'd still need to be a crossbow with regards to the rules, usage, and ammo. But, it would look like a sling, as long as it follows the basic crossbow construction rules. (That should be easy enough to do)

2) You make a bunch of rock looking throwing weapons and a rep for the sling. The rules for throwing weapons are much more loose and you could have rock like reps. Your reps would still need to be throwing weapons and follow the rules for them. But, I think this is probably your best bet for emulating the rocks.
 
1) It'd need a crossbow weapon tag, fire bolts, but the crossbow physrep requirements for a light xbow are basically "14-25 inches, no core" and blue spell packets.
2) The sling rep would be untagged, but you'd need a tag for each rock. The rocks would be reusable, and could be picked up and thrown by anyone with thrown weapon. Minimum size for a rock is 2 inches.

I suspect if you go the sling+rock that at the minimum size you'd have issues with range and would find spell packets to work better.

If you end up making a boffer sling physrep, post a picture because I'd love to see it.
 
Thanks for the explanations and suggestions. There are issues I see with either solution, but I understand the reasoning behind using those specific solutions (safety being the primary one).

Related to both solutions I do have some further questions.

In regards to using a "light crossbow" representation for a sling. Would it be possible to instead of holding the crossbow pysical repersentation out with my off hand/arm bent as would be done with a crossbow, if instead it would be possible to simply have a real sling hanging on my belt and simply not use my off hand for anything else as it was a 2 handed weapon (since it still takes two hands to load a sling)? Or does that fall into the category of not falling within the useage rules and thus not being possible (I suspect this is the case)?

Which would then lead to trying to figure out how best to represent a sling physical representation that meets the weapon construction rules for a light crossbow (have an idea, but suspect it is going to look rediculous), and the fact that the ammo would not he recoverable (which might be difficult for a sling anyways as you need stones or "bullets" of a specific size and shape and they would be difficult to findthem after a battle unless you had them pained a bright color anyways).

Or the thrown rock option would be more representative in that I would not be carrying around a "crossbow" to shoot rock "bolts", but it would reduce the damage possible and due to the larger size of the "thrown item" would not be a good repesentation from an accuracy perspective. But the "ammo" would then be recoverable (whereas the crossbow/bolt option would not), correct?

Next question, dies XPS foam (the "Dow blue board" or Corning pink foam boards) count as Open Cell Foam for weapon construction? Or is that too stiff and hard to be useable fir something like a crossbow?

Thanks again for any guidance and suggestions.

I suspect I will need to do some thinking on how best to represent this.
 
2.5) Anyone familiar with Forgotten Realms?

Me, I’d consider building a melee weapon with an aesthetic scoop at the end, reminiscent of a kender hoopak (or halfling slingstaff).

Sure, you’d have thrown weapon as a skill and you would mechanically throw the weapon, but how you want to translate that to yourself IG is up to you. :)
 
Draven said:
2.5) Anyone familiar with Forgotten Realms?

Me, I’d consider building a melee weapon with an aesthetic scoop at the end, reminiscent of a kender hoopak (or halfling slingstaff).

Sure, you’d have thrown weapon as a skill and you would mechanically throw the weapon, but how you want to translate that to yourself IG is up to you. :)
Click to expand...

From the previous responses I was under the impression that something like that would not be acceptable due to the fact that you would be using it to hurl "packets" by swinging it. Unless I am understaning things incorrectly (which is certainly a possibility).

Or unless you are talking about using that simply to represent a sling type of device (like what Alkalin3 and Feldor were suggesting). And the concept of a staff sling dates back thousands if years and didn't originate with the Forgotten Realms setting. But thanks for the suggestion.
 
You need a physical representation in hand. (An opponent fighting you needs to be able to see that you are wielding something they can disarm/shatter.)

I'm pretty sure you could make a "slingshot" physrep within the constraints of a light crossbow rep easily. A sling is definitely more challenging.

For the foam, you want stuff that won't break when bent. I've been making my crossbows out of that stiff open cell foam, like what you often find electronics padded with. Its kinda stiff and holds its shape well but still bends easily if it comes in to contact with anything.


I think the staff sling idea he was suggesting was holding a staff in one-hand, and throwing "thrown" weapons that were rocks with your other. And then making the staff physrep have a Y at the end to represent it being a staff sling.
 
I meant purely representational, thus “aesthetic scoop.”
 
Make a max length longbow with a “Y” at one end and a grip in the middle and there is your hoopak.
 
1) Crossbow and blue packets
2) Thrown Weapons

There is at least one more way to represent "Sling"

3) Channeling Elemental Stone through a Celestial Source.
A real sling would probably pass as a Source phys-rep and you could use the same packets as spellcasters (any color not blue or orange)The base damage call would be "5 elemental stone" or "10 elemental stone" and limited by purchases of the channeling skill.

Thinking in terms of class fit and what other things you want your character to do, martial classes fit well with Crossbow, stealth classes fit well with Thrown Weapon, and spellcasting classes fit well with Channeling.
 
Very interesting idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

My tentative character thoughts were a Human or Barbarian Scout with a "Ranger" (or even "combat focused Druid") type of feel. So that idea would certainly fit. Although choosing Human would make more sense from a mechanics standpoint if using magic. But then again I don't like the idea of "min-maxing" so may choose Barbarian just to make it a little more challenging and unique.

Was hoping to hold off on using magic initially until I could see it in action and learn the combat rules first. But am planning to be an NPC at my first event in a couple of weeks, so will try talking to a few people about that possibility.
 
Uh, I think you've got an outdated rulebook, if you're looking at Barbarians; they were replaced with Oathsworn with the launch of 2.0 on May 31st. :P Oathsworn have no issues with Celestial magic, so both schools are open to them without issue, but they do have an innate dislike for things like Fey and Elementals that aren't native to Fortannis, and take any Oath they swear very seriously (which... kind of goes with the name ;)).

The beta 2.0 ARB is available here, and the Player's Guide to accompany it is here.
 
@Gorphy

Channeling with a sling. Omgosh. I didn’t even think of that and I love it so much.
 
While it still isn't quite what I was hoping for as I would have preferred an actual sling phys rep, and I may still see if I can figure out a way to do it with a "crossbow" that appears to be a "sling", using magic is definitely an interesting idea that I will definitely look into and seriously consider.

Also thanks Sage of Legaia for letting me know that I have an old version of the rules. I used the link that was on the Alliance web site, so it might be worth someone taking a look to be sure thatthe link is correct (maybe I was looking at an old web page thatis still accesible but should be removed).

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions and ideas.
 
Omg, I thought I edited that out, because I caught the error. Then in my haste to remember the weapon, I forgot to edit it.
 
Okay, sorry to revive this discussion after it had died with the fallen leaves last fall (nearly 6 months ago), but having been to two events so far (1 as an NPC in September and 1 as a PC with my relatively new character in October, where I was using a shillelagh & shield, but no ranged attacks), I am looking back at these options again. I just want to make sure I'm understanding my options correctly.

If I was to use a "crossbow" phys-rep 'sling' I would need the archery skill (which I have already purchased, but not yet actually used at all) and could use a packet as the "delivery object" (which in theory should be semi-accurate to target with).

If I go with a "thrown" weapon, then I would essentially need to use the thrown weapon rules and the thrown weapon skill (which is generally slightly cheaper, but would require a larger thrown weapon phys-rep (essentially a "rock" at least 2" in diameter with no "core" and no "weight" (likely making them very difficult to control their flight arc)). Trading (since I have only played the character once so far and can make a change now) Archery for Thrown Weapon would currently net me +4 XP to use elsewhere.

If I were to use the Channeling "Stone" with an actual sling as a phys-rep (if the TC chapter allows it to be used), then I could use packets (which in theory should be semi-accurate to target with), but it would essentially have a base XP cost of 14 XP if I worked towards it and transitioned from a Fighter (current build) to a SpellSword (which would give me the best XP cost for the new build once I actually get to that point) or a base cost with my current build of 28 XP if I remained as a Fighter (Educated, Read Magic, Lvl 1 Spell Slot and Channeling).

Decisions... decisions... In the short term sticking with Fighter would be cheaper for all three (even the channeling earth option, but that would open up a lot of other possibilities for me if I were to switch to a Spellsword (the end cost to get there with the current build would be +5XP over developing the skills directly as a Fighter). Still not sure which route to take with this.

I like the idea of using the Archery Skill and trying to create a "crossbow" phys-rep to look like a sling, but am drawing a complete blank as to how best to accomplish that so it would actually look good.

I am not all that crazy about the idea of having to carry around a staff or "bow" phys-rep with Y on the top to represent a staff-sling. Not that it is a bad idea, as it is a very good one, just not really what I was thinking for my character.

So am leaning towards the channeling sling concept that Gorphy suggested... but it will take some time to get there due to the cost.

Gorphy said:
There is at least one more way to represent "Sling"

3) Channeling Elemental Stone through a Celestial Source.
A real sling would probably pass as a Source phys-rep and you could use the same packets as spellcasters (any color not blue or orange)The base damage call would be "5 elemental stone" or "10 elemental stone" and limited by purchases of the channeling skill.
Click to expand...
 
If you built something similar to what they made in metal for these models out of foam, and met the dimension requirements for a "crossbow" you could use it as with the Archery skill and fire "bolts".
1583815862421.png
 
MaxIrons said:
If you built something similar to what they made in metal for these models out of foam, and met the dimension requirements for a "crossbow" you could use it as with the Archery skill and fire "bolts".
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I was thinking that when I looked at doing this earlier (based on Alkalin3's suggestion early in the discussion) that a cross-piece was required for the crossbow. But now that I think about it, I think I was looking at the old rules (as pointed out to me by Sage of Legaia) and looking more closely at the rules now I don't see where an arched crosspiece is required in the minimum dimensions or the description. So maybe that would be the better option after all. As I was not coming up with a design for a sling using foam that would look similar to a crossbow.
 
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